On Tuesday, January 17, British Conservative Party politician Kwasi Kwarteng moderated a Westminster Hall debate on sudden unexplained child deaths.
According to SUDC UK, the sudden and unexpected death of the child, aged between 1 and 18, remains unexplained after a full investigation.
Former UK Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, who led the debate, argued that SUDC was one of the country’s most ‘serious medical phenomena’, which had received little attention until now.
Kwasi thanked everyone who shared their experiences and thoughts during the discussion.
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“The initial response to this discussion has been incredibly heartwarming and impactful. In the past few days, dozens and dozens of people have written in. They have described their experiences and told us about their own tragedies and their families who have been torn apart and devastated by this phenomenon,” he said.
“It’s unclear to me to talk about those responses individually, but common themes run through all the submissions in this overwhelming response—all the evidence we’ve collected over the last few days…”
“I congratulate the many people who have been through this heartbreaking experience who have had the courage to meet with MPs and are working incredibly hard to ensure this furthers the agenda,” he continued. .
Read or watch the debate for his full speech here.
More from the BBC:
MPs were united in their call for more research to be carried out; Worldwide, only 55 research papers have been published on SUDC, while 12,000 have been conducted on sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), also known as cot death. 80% of these deaths have decreased since the early 1990s.
He called for the NHS website to be updated to include information about SUDC and more training for medical practitioners.
Discussion Many children classified as SUDC had febrile seizures. However, the association between febrile seizures and SUDC has not been proven.
Mr Farron said children seeking medical attention for febrile seizures should be seen as a red flag.
Neil O’Brien, the minister for primary care and public health, said of the 204 unexpected and sudden deaths of children reviewed by child death watch panels in 2022, 32 were classified as unexplained.
The National Child Mortality Database, set up in 2018, aims to systematically capture information on every child death and is working with the NHS to identify modifiable factors, he said.
The Minister said that every region of the country has Child Death Monitoring Boards which are responsible for reviewing all child death information and looking for patterns and service improvements.
He said the University of Bristol had been approached to discuss potential research priorities.
He said the NHS Children and Young People Program was reviewing patient information to ensure it was current and appropriate.
